[Image: Alexander Adams, Firs in Snow, Fog Effect, 2017, oil on canvas]
I am pleased to launch the first website to present my art: alexanderadams.art. The WordPress site will continue to present articles. This new one will concentrate on the art and books. https://www.alexanderadams.art/
[Image: Robert Motherwell: Open, installation view (Dover Beach no. III (1974) on left), courtesy Galerie Templon, Paris & Brussels. Photo: B.Huet/Tutti]
A new exhibition in Paris showcases some striking examples of Abstract Expressionism by Robert Motherwell.
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) was one of leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionism. He was something of an organiser and a committed teacher, helping to explain abstraction and spread its practice among American artists. He was a writer and editor and his facility with words was sometimes held against him. Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko were revered as the high priests (or rabbis) of the New York School but Motherwell was viewed as a professor – a bit earnest, a little dry. This is a little unfair because he was a talented painter and influenced many younger artists with his art.
Over a very productive career, Motherwell produced thousands of paintings, drawings and collages. He was the leading collagist of the New York School, combining scraps of printed paper, book pages, postage stamps and labels, with added dashes of paint and charcoal lines. Many of his collages reflect his love of French culture, particularly literature. His art is distinguished by its elegance, poise and brevity.
Much of Motherwell’s later work relies on the impact of large expanses of single colours, coming close to Colour-Field painting. Colour-Field painting is based on the effect of intense colour and large shapes, frequently using staining and avoiding prominent brushwork and gesture, as seen in Abstract Expressionism, which immediately preceded the Colour-Field movement. For a period, Motherwell was married to Helen Frankenthaler, who developed Colour-Field painting in collaboration with Jules Olitski and Kenneth Noland. The influence of Matisse’s single-colour ground paintings (such as The Red Studio (1911)) is also apparent in Motherwell’s later work.
[Image: Robert Motherwell: Open, installation view, courtesy Galerie Templon, Paris & Brussels. Photo: B.Huet/Tutti]
Robert Motherwell: Open, Galerie Templon, Paris (17 May-21 July 2018) gathers some Motherwell’s paintings from the Open series. These are some of his best paintings. Indeed, the array in the day-lit main gallery, which presents the large paintings, is as good as the centrepiece of a museum retrospective. The exhibition presents a very persuasive case for Motherwell as powerful and original painter.
The brushed bronze-gold hue of Untitled (1974) has a near metallic quality. Dover Beach no. III (1974) has more activity, with scribbled brushmarks imparting greater contrast and complexity. The dark blue swatch in the right side implies sky, turning the rectilinear motif into a closed window in a wall next to sky. There has been debate over how literally the Open series should be interpreted, with some seeing the drawn forms as apertures such as windows or doors, others claiming these are purely abstract designs. The Mexican Window (1974) is more concretely figural, with the open window and shutters distilled to a graphic summary.
[Image: Robert Motherwell, The Mexican Window (1974), acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 194.3 x 243.8 cm, courtesy Galerie Templon, Paris & Brussels. Photo: B.Huet/Tutti]
The shutters cast narrow bands of shadow on the wall below. We feel the heat and glare of midday sunlight on a house wall. There is a West Coast ambience to many of the larger paintings, not dissimilar to Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series. However, Motherwell’s Open paintings are much more successful than the Ocean Park series, having a great deal more energetic, rich colour and satisfying surfaces. The Ocean Park paintings have an unpleasant dry, drab surface and an insubstantial feeling.
The wet painterly washes of the thinned acrylic paint give the impression of the minor imperfections found in ordinarily painted stucco. The size of these paintings (frequently at or exceeding two metres in dimensions) reinforces the mural character of subjects. In a way, the Open series is itself a sequence of detached murals. In this respect they are curiously mimetic: painted sections of walls have been treated as detached sections of wall.
[Image: Robert Motherwell, California Window (1975), acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 182.9 x 213.4 cm, courtesy Galerie Templon, Paris & Brussels. Photo: B.Huet/Tutti]
The acrylic paint has held up well over the years and shows no sign of deterioration. One reason the paintings are in good condition is the fact they belong to the estate of the artist and have been carefully conserved. All of the 17 paintings in the exhibition come from the Motherwell Estate and all are for sale. The prices are reasonable considering the quality and importance of these paintings.
Critics have noted the lifting/ascending character of the uneven, open-topped forms placed high on the picture plane in this series. These paintings have a surprising amount of energy considering the limited range of expression. There is plenty to see, probably because of the subtle qualities of the energetic surfaces and how they change according to the light. For such simple paintings, they are actually lively.
There are a number of weak paintings. The black painting with a scraped curving outline is slight and unsatisfying. It lacks the substance of painted or drawn lines. Black Open (1973) and Royal Dirge (1972) are both predominantly black and both unsatisfying. Motherwell has a problem animating black and it shows how his art works when it is at its best – through complementing graphic elements with washed rich colour. In the black paintings half of that equation is missing. However, these weaker paintings serve to demonstrate how the series work in general by proving the rule.
In Great Wall of China no. 4 (1971) the yellow top coat covers darker forms in watery obscuration. In this piece we are made aware of a lost earlier state – something of a rarity in Motherwell’s work. Revision – certainly radical revision – is almost entirely absent from Motherwell’s late paintings and the Open pieces are only lightly worked. If anything, Motherwell is open to the criticism of being facile. On the whole, these paintings are very bold, confident and well-judged. Some of the smaller paintings risk the charge of being slight, but Open Study in Charcoal on Grey #1 (1974) has heft, despite its small size. Untitled (Red Open) (c. 1974) is a fine painting, rich in colour and satisfying in design.
This is a superb exhibition of one of abstract art’s best painters. Strongly recommended.
Galerie Templon, 30 rue Beaubourg, Paris 75003, https://www.templon.com/
© 2018 Alexander Adams
[Image: Jules Chéret, Bal au Moulin Rouge (1889), color lithograph on paper, Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers, Museum Purchase, photo: Jack Abraham]
The invention of lithography by Bavarian chemist Alois Senefelder in 1796 revolutionised printing. His system of fixing a drawn design on to a stone surface in a new printing process would increase the speed of design, rate of printing and longevity of the design matrix, allowing prints to made faster, cheaper and more plentiful than ever before. Lithography was originally used to print sheet music more efficiently but its potential in every area of printing was soon recognised and by the second decade of the Nineteenth Century a lithography boom had begun. It was used to print sheet music, newspaper illustrations, posters, maps, timetables, menus, book plates, labels, forms, stationery letterheads and a huge range of other material featuring text and images. Lithography became a large, specialised and profitable industry. The variant of offset lithography is still the standard means of mass printing to this day.
The current exhibition Set in Stone: Lithography in Paris, 1815-1900 held at Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (20 January-20 July 2018) contains many lithographs from this boom, with exhibited items taken from its expansive permanent collection. This review is of the exhibition catalogue. The survey of French lithography ranges from the Napoleonic era to the dawn of the Twentieth Century and the advent of High Modernism.
The technology of lithography advanced over the Nineteenth Century. The use of zinc plates meant that larger sheets could be printed – a key step towards the development of large posters in the 1860s. Registration was improved, allowing the production of three- and four-colour prints. The use of motorisation allowed the automated production of prints, superseding hand-cranking of presses. The ease of use and widespread availability of lithography drove reproduction engraving and etching to near extinction, where etching lived on as an artistic rather than industrial process. Transfer lithography was the development of sheets which could be drawn on before being transferred to the plate in the studio. This meant that artists did not need to come to the studio to draw directly on stones or plates.
Although not intended as an artist’s medium, fine artists were quick to explore the potential of the new medium. Unlike etching and engraving, the process was a simple one. The artist could simply draw on a stone or plate in wax crayon or ink and leave all other stages to master printmakers; however, full-time professional lithograph artists did become technically proficient in all aspects of the printing process. Print-sellers began to encourage and promote lithography as an artist’s medium and cultivate collectors.
The catalogue essays by Christine Giviskos are informative and wide ranging. Exhibited items include examples of art, book illustrations, lettering, reproduction prints, satirical images and posters, some in colour. Art styles covered in this catalogue cover Romanticism, Classicism, Pointillism, Post-Impressionism and the Nabis. Reproduction prints could act as transcriptions of paintings, drawings or prints and became the principal means of becoming familiar with the Old Masters.
Social history looms large in this selection. The after effects of the Napoleonic wars dominated public discourse in the 1810s and 1820s and caused seismic political divisions in the French population. Workless vagrant veterans from the Napoleonic campaigns were a constant reminder of France’s lost glory and ignominious defeats. Veterans were idolised as heroes but also feared as dangerous criminal vagabonds. The plight of soldiers in war and afterwards were presented in lithographs by Horace and Carle Vernet, Hyacinthe Aubry-Lecomte, Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet and Théodore Géricault. Also included are some of Géricault’s equine lithographs, some executed from scenes the artist encountered in London.
[Image: Théodore Géricault, The English Farrier (1821), lithograph on paper, Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers, Museum Purchase, photo: Peter Jacobs]
The most influential humorous lithographer was Honoré Daumier. His social commentaries and satires had widespread popular appeal and commanded respect from critics and fellow artists alike. He moved fluidly between modes of approach and mediums. His satirical work is to the fore in this selection. Other prominent satirists (including JJ Grandville, LL Boilly) are included in the exhibition and discussed briefly in the catalogue.
Jules Chéret (1836-1932) was the star of French colour posters. His blend of strong colour, stylised figural rendering and dramatic lettering produced pieces such as the exhibited Bal au Moulin Rouge (1889). Other posters are classics by Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Maurou and others. There is a copy of Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen’s famous Chat Noir poster of 1896. Included is a Steinlen poster and the original stone that he drew on, allowing viewers to understand the process. The drawing includes the motif, some lettering and registration marks. The final version has extra elements and more lettering.
Painters such as Théodore Chassériau used lithography to make reproduction prints of paintings exhibited at the Autumn Salon, such as Venus Anadyomene (c. 1844). Henri Fantin-Latour developed a painterly approach to lithography, using a scraper to scratch dashes of light into shaded areas. The grainy, dark quality of lithography was ideal for Odilon Redon’s sfumato fantasies. Oddities in this selection include two lithographs by Eugène Carrière (1849-1906), who was famous for his chiaroscuro – nearly monochrome – oil paintings and charcoal drawings. The lithographs of a woman resting her head and a foundry scene are very mannered and suave, lacking the gravitas and melancholy of his paintings. Constant Meunier, the Belgian artist who specialised in scenes of industrial work, may have inspired Carrière’s foundry scene.
Édouard Manet created some lithographs illustrating Poe’s The Raven. His Le Polichinelle (1874) colour lithograph was intended to be an insert in newspaper Le Temps, however it was suppressed, perhaps due to political pressure. Manet seemed to be mocking a senior statesman and the police may have ordered the proofs to be destroyed. Only a few copies of the print survive. His Raven illustrations feature drawing in ink, showing how painterly lithography could be.
Late in the boom the journal La Revue blanche (1893-4) capitalised on aficionado appreciation for lithographs among dedicated collectors. It commissioned covers and posters by prominent artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and some of the new generation, including Félix Vallotton, a young Bonnard and other Nabis.
Apart from the design decision to allow illustrations to cover two pages – thus obscuring the centre in shadow – this title is flawless. It forms an excellent introduction to the diversity of pictorial lithography in France during the first century of the technology. Readers are recommended to visit the exhibition.
Christine Giviskos, Set in Stone: Lithography in Paris, 1815-1900, Hirmer/Zimmerli Art Museum/Rutgers University, hardback, 184pp, 130 col. illus., $45, ISBN 978 3777 429946
Other reviews on printmaking in the Nineteenth Century
Prints in Colour, France 1880-1900: https://alexanderadamsart.wordpress.com/2018/01/25/prints-in-colour-france-1880-1900/
Prints in Paris, 1900: https://alexanderadamsart.wordpress.com/2017/03/07/prints-in-paris-1900/
© 2018 Alexander Adams
“Some grand claims have been made for the art of Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941). Christie’s described her as ‘one of the greatest avant-garde women artists of the early 20th century’, yet few art-history students in Europe and America know her name. The reissue of Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self-Portrait in Letters & Writings, which collects all of the artist’s writings and reproduces her 172 surviving paintings, allows us to judge the acclaim. In the foreword, Salman Rushdie explains how Sher-Gil became an inspiration for his character Aurora Zogoiby in The Moor’s Last Sigh.
“There is scarcely a day without a gallery press release announcing the rediscovery of a female artist who has not just been neglected but ‘excluded from the Western fine-art canon’. The claim that any artist can be excluded from the canon is nonsensical. The Western canon is a list of the most important good art that a person should know in order to understand the Western art tradition. The canon is not a set text, but a composite of opinions and has no central authority and changes over time. Therefore no art or artist can ever be excluded from the Western canon, whatever you may be told. (For an explanation, read my essay here.)
“Amrita Sher-Gil was born in 1913 in Budapest. Her family was middle class. Her father was Amrao Singh Sher-Gil, a Sikh writer and religious ascetic. He was a skilled photographer and his favourite subject was his family. Amrita’s mother was of French and Hungarian Jewish descent. The couple were mismatched in some respects and the conflict between an ascetic detached father and neurotic socialite mother would prove a source of instability in Amrita’s life. The family (including Amrita’s younger sister Indira) spent Amrita’s early years in Hungary before the family moved to Simla, India in 1924.
This two-volume book publishes all of Amrita’s writings, translated from the original French and Hungarian. She spoke English to her family and Indian colleagues, so much of the text is in her own words….”
Read the full review online at Spiked here: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/amrita-sher-gil-unseen-brilliance/21365#.Wu7uNC7wbIU
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